WASHINGTON, January 12, 2012 (AFP) â€“ Most Mormons believe Americans are ready to elect the first Mormon president in the upcoming election, according to results of a Pew Research Center survey announced Thursday.

The Pew Research Center, a public policy research foundation, conducted the survey independently from the Mormon church at a time Republican front-runner Mitt Romney, a Mormon, is leading in some polls to become the next US president.

â€œMany Mormons feel they are misunderstood, discriminated against and not accepted by other Americans,â€ the Pew report on the survey said. â€œYet, at the same time, a majority of Mormons think that acceptance of Mormonism is rising.

â€œThey have highly positive views of GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney, a fellow Mormon, and a majority think the country is ready to elect a Mormon president.â€

The survey found that most Mormons consider themselves to be religious and happy in their personal lives.

Greg Smith, who led the study, said the survey showed a â€œmixed picture.â€

â€œClearly, this is a population that in many ways still sees itself as being on the periphery of American society,â€ Smith said at a news conference.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS), its official name, was organized in the United States in 1830 and now represents 2% of the US population.

The church is known for its missionaries, its practice of polygamy that was discontinued in 1890 and its expertise in genealogy developed for religious reasons.

A controversy about the church arose last summer at a campaign event when a Baptist pastor introducing presidential candidate Rick Perry referred to Romneyâ€™s Mormonism as a â€œcult.â€

Nevertheless, the Pew survey showed 87% of respondents defining themselves as Mormon are satisfied with their lives, 56% think Mormons are not well-understood by most Americans and almost one in two, or 46%, believe they suffer discrimination.

Six out of 10 Mormons believe most Americans are poorly informed about Mormonism and two-thirds think most Americans do not see them as full members of society.

However, 56% believe Americans are ready to elect a Mormon president, compared with 32% who do not believe the time is right.